


Just Enough

by KayOsmondsFireweedFoundation



Category: Mumintroll | Moomins Series - Tove Jansson
Genre: But only a little, Fluff, Good Parent Joxaren | The Joxter, I just really like that tag, Light Angst, M/M, There's crying, although you don't have to squint very hard, by 'people' you know exactly who i mean, joxter isn't actually present in this one, just discussed in conversation, moomin is a good soft boy, no beta we die like men, not technically romance, or do you?, other characters are mentioned but not enough to warrant a tag, reassuring snufkin is reassuring, snufkin admits that he misses people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-07 17:07:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18877504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KayOsmondsFireweedFoundation/pseuds/KayOsmondsFireweedFoundation
Summary: "I worry sometimes that you don’t miss me as much as I miss you. I miss you terribly when you’re not around.”“Oh, Moomin.”“And, well, if you didn’t feel the same way, I’d feel so… unwanted, I suppose.”Snufkin realised, with not inconsiderable distress, that his friend’s voice was quavering in the way it did when he was about to cry.





	Just Enough

**Author's Note:**

> This was going to be a father-son bonding episode based on [ this song ](https://youtu.be/KJF4sROp9QU), but it drifted into 'Moomin-wants-Snufkin-to-admit-that-he-misses-him-but-also-doesn't-want-to-be-clingy' pretty quickly and I didn't want the focus to get muddled. I'll probably write another one to address the Good Dad Joxter business, because Lord knows we need more of that shit.

“I don’t know that one.”

Snufkin glanced up from under the brim of his hat to see Moomintroll standing over him. He’d been so wrapped up in playing his harmonica that he hadn’t heard his friend’s approach, but if he was surprised he didn’t show it.

“I don’t play it often. I can play something else, if you like.”

“Oh no!” Moomin said quickly, sitting down next to him. “It’s nice.”

Snufkin smiled and lay back against the bank, starting up again. Moomin listened as the tune rose, gentle and melancholy, over the river and away across the treetops. It was beautiful, edged with something that bordered on mournful.

“What’s it called?”

Snufkin finished the line he was playing.

“I’m not sure it has a name.”

“Oh. Well, it’s very pretty. Did you write it?”

“No.” 

Moomin waited patiently for Snufkin to expand; he was gazing up into the sky, not quite focusing on the clouds, in a state of solemn pensivity that must surely promise an interesting explanation.

“My papa used to sing it.”

“The Joxter?”

“Yes.” Snufkin replied faintly and twiddled the harmonica about in his fingers.

“Oh.” Moomin didn’t say what Moominpappa had always asserted (which was that the Joxter had been a lazy good-for-nothing who had all but abandoned his son), but the accusation hung heavy in the air all the same.

Snufkin answered the unspoken.

“He did more than most folk realise.”

He played another handful of bars in a misty, far-away fashion before pausing again to set the instrument against his chest and sigh deeply.

“You must miss him,” Moomin said tentatively as he lay down next to his friend. The thought of being away from his own family, even for a day, brought tears to his eyes. He couldn’t begin to imagine what it must be like to be separated entirely.

“Mumriks aren’t really designed for ‘missing people’, Moomin. We’d make pretty poor nomads if that weren’t the case.”

“Oh.” Moomin tried not to sound hurt and failed entirely. Snufkin laughed gently.

“Not missing someone is not the same as not loving someone, dear friend,” he said. Then, when said friend looked at him with wobbly eyes, he laughed again and added, “Alright, alright, sometimes I miss people.” 

Moomin brightened considerably. “Who do you miss, Snufkin?”

Snufkin cast him a sly glance. “Oh, you know. I miss Moominmamma’s cooking, for certain, and Moominpappa’s adventures.”

“And?”

“Oh, I suppose I miss finding out what Mr Hemulen’s been collecting most recently, and I miss Snorkmaiden showing me all the lovely things she’s found. Sometimes I even miss Little My’s mischief, although not very often.”

“Mm. Anyone else?”

Snufkin rubbed his chin in feigned puzzlement.

“Sniff?”

He squawked most ungracefully at the first jab to the ribs, then caught the second by the wrist.

“Tell me you miss me, you bully,” Moomin huffed.

“Did I really need to tell you that?” He grinned, lacing tan fingers around the little white hand.

“No, but I like to hear it anyway.” Moomin pouted for effect.

Snufkin laughed once more, then looked at his friend with very genuine eyes.

“Of course I miss you, dear Moomin.”

Moomin beamed, tail swishing in delight.

“When do you miss me?” he asked, taking Snufkin’s other hand in his own.

Snufkin tilted his head, thoughtful.

“Well, let’s see. Sometimes I'll see something I think you might like, a landscape or a particularly lovely building or such, something I just know I can’t do justice to with words alone, and I’ll think to myself, ‘Gosh, I wish my dear Moomin were here to see this’. Sometimes I even think that all on its own, without anything to prompt it, just because it would be nice to have you there.”

Moomin was practically glowing, so Snufkin was surprised when he asked, “You don’t get _too_ sad without me, do you?”

“Now look,” he chuckled, “weren’t you just laying hands on me for suggesting that I _don’t_ get sad when you’re not around?”

“Yes,” Moomin replied guiltily. “I was being selfish. I worry sometimes that you don’t miss me as much as I miss you. I miss you terribly when you’re not around.” 

“Oh, Moomin.”

“And, well, if you didn’t feel the same way, I’d feel so… unwanted, I suppose.”

Snufkin realised, with not inconsiderable distress, that his friend’s voice was quavering in the way it did when he was about to cry.

“Moomin, I…”

“But I only have to feel that way for a little while, and if you did miss me that much, you’d have to feel horrible all winter long, and I’d like that even less.”

Snufkin caught the tear with his thumb just before it had time to roll off the curve of Moomin’s cheek.

“How lucky I am to call you my friend, my dear,” he murmured, immensely fondly. 

Moomin sniffed “Really?”

“Yes, really. I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you make accommodation for me, even though it upsets you. If I were to leave Moomin Valley and never return, I could walk the earth for a hundred years and never come across another friend as precious and as wonderful as you."

“Oh, Snufkin!” Moomin smiled wide and silly, then opened his arms. “May I?”

“I think you better had.”

With that, Moomin threw his arms around Snufkin and alternated between laughing and crying into the crook of his neck.

Snufkin sighed and smiled, petting Moomin’s downy fluff. “I do miss you, I promise. Just enough to mean that I don’t go completely mad when you go to sleep, and just enough to mean that I’ll always come back in spring.”

Moomin nodded and pressed his forehead against his friend’s.

“Just enough is good.”

For a while they lay on the bank, heads together and holding hands, just quietly.

“Snufkin?

“Yes, Moomin?”

“When do your miss your papa?”

When Snufkin didn’t reply, he added quickly, “I was just thinking before of how much I’d miss Moominpappa if he went away. Do you really not miss him?”

Snufkin sighed and sat up, patting around in the grass to find his harmonica. Moomin waited and watched him from the ground, anxious that he had said the wrong thing.

“Not normally,” Snufkin admitted at length. “He was never shy about the fact that we would part ways eventually, so I suppose I was primed to avoid making that sort of attachment. But in springtime, when everything is blossoming and the world is coming alive, I just…”

He found the instrument and wiped if on his sleeve distractedly.

“Yes…?” Moomin prompted, not wanting to press but horribly curious at the same time.

Snufkin huffed a smile. “I remember, I suppose. When I was still young enough to be living with the Mymble, he used to take me out into the woods so that he could teach me things. How to make a shelter, what kind of sticks made good firewood. How to identify plants. What was good to eat, what was poisonous, that sort of thing. The sorts of things he knew I would need to know when I started wandering.”

“And he would sing?”

“Yes. And he would sing.” Snufkin’s eyes were fixed on his harmonica, brows furrowed. “Sometimes I wonder if there are ever times, as spring arrives and the flowers are blooming, when he misses me too.”

“Oh, there must be,” Moomin said, too quickly. “Surely there must be.”

Snufkin smiled a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “It’s a nice thought.”

His tone was one that made Moomin want to hug him again, but he wasn’t entirely sure that would help. So he sat up next to him instead.

“Snufkin?”

“Yes, dear Moomin?”

“Mama has been very good at teaching me all the things in her garden, but I’m quite useless when it comes to wildflowers. If it would be alright with you, I’d like you to teach me. Only if that would be alright, of course.”

This time Snufkin’s smile was real and warm and wonderful.

“You know what? I like the sound of that.”

He struck up on the harmonica again, and Moomin leant in against him as the strains of ‘All Small Beasts Should Have Bows In Their Tails’ floated up into the breeze.

**Author's Note:**

> [ poetry/writing tumblr](https://kay-osmonds-fireweed-foundation.tumblr.com/)   
>  [poetry instagram](https://www.instagram.com/fireweedfoundation/)


End file.
